It's Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught

by Tim Sloan

When Sammy Sosa was caught with a corked bat during a game earlier this year, most everyone in the sports community lined up in one of two camps. The first group was heartbroken. How could this baseball legend, a hero to thousands of kids worldwide, have made the "mistake" of doing something illegal. People in the other camp were a little more cynical: Of course he cheated, was their position. It's baseball; it's part of the game.

If cheating - or its close relative (and oftentimes identical twin) gamesmanship - is part of the game, nobody told the folks who write the rules. Take a look at any baseball rulebook at any level, or any other sports rulebook, and contrary to what millions of sports fans, players and coaches might believe, you won't find any passage that reads, "Participants are free to gain - ethically or unethically - any additional advantage they can outside of these rules so long as they don't get caught."

Gamesmanship, once described by humorist Stephen Potter as, "The art of winning without actually cheating," has been in sports since Spartacus first cried, "Holding!" Often, gamesmanship IS cheating. It usually involves finding a loophole in the rules and then driving a Zamboni through it. Once upon a time, a player at the Carlisle Indian School, Jim Thorpe's alma mater, sprinted through 11 befuddled defenders with the football stuffed in the back of his jersey. A minor league catcher once picked off a runner with a potato. More recently, retired coaching legend Bo Schembechler had the players on his Michigan football team place washers between their regulation half-inch cleats and the soles of their shoes to give them more traction. Incidents like those might be construed as more cheeky than harmful. They involve using a little creativity to gain an edge. Shortly after something like that happens, a rules committee usually decides how to plug the hole and everyone moves on.

It's Just Part of the Game . . .

What we're seeing more of these days, unfortunately, is behaviour that goes beyond the simple leveraging of the rules practiced in gamesmanship. We're seeing fundamental rules being deliberately broken to gain an ongoing advantage. In the extreme, it produces characters like former MLB pitcher Gaylord Perry, whose near-mythical status as a cheater has brought him more fame than his 314 career wins.

Dave Phillips, a retired MLB umpire, was in the thick of numerous famous cheating incidents. He says, "Perry was a pain to work with because people were always asking me to check the ball." Most of the time, the ball was clean and unblemished. One night, in 1982, however, Phillips was working the plate in a game between Perry's Seattle Mariners and the visiting Boston Red Sox. During Perry's fifth-inning warm-up throws, Phillips was asked to inspect a ball (again) and, "As soon as the catcher flipped me the ball I could see my fingerprint - there was grease on it." said Phillips. "Perry couldn't be ejected because it was during the warm-up. I started to walk out there and he looked aggravated . . . and he shouted, 'I never put anything on the ball,' which I thought was interesting because I hadn't said anything yet."

Phillips told Perry to consider the conversation his warning and that if he threw another illegal pitch he would be ejected. He only had to wait two innings.

"(Perry) was in a jam," recalls Phillips. "Rick Miller is the batter and the second pitch comes in straight for the feet and then it just disappears. It was like it rolled off a table. I immediately threw my hands up and everybody knew what Perry had done. I just decided that was it. He was ejected and there was no argument."

In retrospect, the incident seems cut-and-dried but the question Phillips gets is why it didn't happen more often. He won't vouch for other umpires, but the night he tossed Perry the physical evidence certainly helped. It would appear that habeas corpus is a concept not lost on ballplayers.

In another incident, Phillips ejected Minnesota pitcher Joe Niekro from a game after his umpiring crew started a collection of balls Niekro had thrown. They all had the same scratch over the league president's signature. The crew paid Joe a visit on the mound and found him in possession of a baseball card of his son and a short piece of emery board. The emery board was good enough for an early shower but the fun was just beginning.

"We put the balls in a plastic bag," said Phillips, "And I gave them to the ballboy to put in our locker room. The next thing I know the kid's back, in tears, and he says that one of the Twin's reserve players stole the balls from him.

"I called out (Twins Manager) Tom Kelly and told him what happened," Phillips continued. Phillips didn't have to say much more. "Kelly said he wasn't going to put up with that (stuff) and he'd get the balls back. And he did. Kelly was a very fair guy."

Niekro, of course, is also the same pitcher who was famously caught on national television in 1987 emptying his pockets for the umpires when another emery board flew out and landed on the pitcher's mound. He was also carrying a small piece of sandpaper " contoured to fit a finger," according to second-base umpire Steve Palermo. "The guy was so blatant," said Palermo. "It was like a guy walking down the street carrying a bottle of booze during Prohibition." Niekro denied any wrongdoing, arguing that as a knuckleballer, he needed the emery board to file his fingernails. And the sandpaper? "Sometimes I sweat a lot, and the emery board gets wet," he explained. "And I'll also use the paper for small blisters."

In another infamous episode, Phillips confiscated a bat in 1994 from Cleveland’s Albert Belle that the Chicago White Sox suspected had been corked. The umpires’ locked the bat in their dressing room for later examination. In that case the issue wasn't so much the MRI results on Belle's bat but its theft from the umpires’ dressing room. A Cleveland pitcher, Jason Grimsley, crawled through the space above the drop ceiling from the visitors' room to the umpires’ room, and replaced Belle's illegal bat with a different one, which was signed by Paul Sorrento - something that didn't exactly fool Phillips and his crew when they returned to the locker room after the game. After an investigation that eventually involved Major League Security and even the FBI, Phillips got the stolen bat back two days later but baseball had a black eye. Even though they might seem funny now, even quaint, incidents like those lend credence to the sad belief that, "It ain't cheating if you don't get caught"

Illegal vs. Unethical: Is There a Difference?

Getting caught cheating really involves two things: Actually doing something illegal and then having an official step up and take action. More often than ever, the problem with that sequence is not the breaking of rules but the official taking effective action.

Soccer has a term it uses called "professional foul." A good example is when an attacking forward beats the offside-trap and finds himself dribbling in alone with only the goalkeeper between him and the net. With a deft flick of the ball he sidesteps the keeper only to be grabbed by the ankle and dragged down while the ball rolls away harmlessly. The result is a penalty kick, but the goalkeeper has actually "won" with that professional foul: He's denied the attacker an easy shot at an open net in favor of a less certain attempt from the penalty spot with the keeper now back in position. In earlier days, an event like that was "unsporting" and a rarity. Over time, however, European soccer began seeing professional fouls like that becoming almost "standard procedure” whereupon they got their more vitriolic name, "cynical fouls." What happened? Soccer refs are now sending players off for professional fouls - the best balance within the rules between the intent of the foul and the justice of the penalty.

The pertinent question is why did that type of play become standard procedure? Phillips says pitchers deface baseballs to shore up fading skills late in their careers. That way, they get to keep earning their huge salaries for a couple more years. But baseball, though the sport most rife with skullduggery, as the late writer George Plimpton termed it, is hardly alone when it comes to cheating. Brand new footballs emerge from their plastic bags and apparently devolve into bloated carcasses of very old pigs when they become "The Kicking Ball."

Players in other sports tug shirts, hook Wayne Gretzky and use their opponent at the low post as a La-Z-Boy, gambling they won't get penalized. They have an actuary's sense for probability versus cost. Every time sins like those succeed, they contribute to the attitude that deliberate fouls are worth the risk and the penalty if you still win. That beats the growing consequences of losing: And there are at least some people out there who feel officials are complicitous because they're not taking a firmer stand.

Any official worth his or her salt will penalize a blatant act of cheating, but what about dealing with cheating or unethical behavior that's not so clear cut? In football, is an offensive lineman who holds his opponent, knowing that such an act is illegal, cheating or is he just gambling he won't get caught? Is there even a difference? What about the basketball player who flops hard to the floor after minimal contact? Is he cheating?

Michael Josephson is a former law professor who now runs the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles. The Institute sponsors a program called Character Counts!, which has been embraced by numerous school boards, leagues and other organizations, and reaches more than five million students nationwide, stressing the importance of ethical behavior in everyday life. When it comes to why referees don't consistently crack down on cheating or deliberate fouls, Josephson believes, "It's not always the case that the referee is under pressure and there's so much money involved. The referees, in my opinion, have not just been the victims of that pressure. In many cases I find the referees help it.

"In soccer, the element of holding is clearly illegal," he notes as an example. "You're never supposed to deliberately grab the uniform of another player," and yet it happens frequently as two players fight for the ball. "Referees are part of it. If they'd only call it consistently the problem would go away."

Josephson believes officials have fallen into the trap of trying to give their sports what they think they want rather than simply enforcing the rules as written. That often stems, he says, from their belief that leagues want officials who don't upset the flow of the game by calling fouls that have become common events. "Every time we don't make the call, we move the line back," Josephson contends. "We change the de facto rules, not the real rules, and that changes the attitude of the participants. ... It changes the nature of the competition and the best cheater wins instead of the best athlete."

Some may think that Josephson's no-compromise approach is somewhere between naive and purist - that life isn't nearly that lily-white and officials do need to go with the flow in many cases. He flatly disagrees and challenges officials with an interesting acid test: "If gamesmanship is really part of the game, we should teach it to the highest level of proficiency," he says. "We don't because it's cheating - we know it's wrong."

Are We Part of the Problem?

Former NFL and four-time Super Bowl referee Jerry Markbreit reflects the attitude of many top-flight officials toward calling fouls in his book, Last Call: Memoirs of an NFL Referee. He writes, "The experienced official uses a simple rule of thumb: Did he gain an unfair advantage? If so, it's a foul. If not, the play stands. That's the difference between a hold at the point of attack and an equal hold on the trailing side of the play. While both fulfill the definition warranting a 10 yard penalty, only the one that affects the play gets punished on Sunday afternoon."

That's one reason why officials may let some fouls - as defined by the rulebook - go unpenalized. But why else would that happen, as Josephson says it does? The author of this article worked in a football league several years ago in which officials recorded every foul on a penalty card by team, player, time and calling official. At halftime and after the game, the card was passed around presumably to confirm the information was statistically correct. It eventually became apparent that people were mostly counting the number of fouls they had called. It was clear that there was a limit in mind for penalties called in a game. One assessment came back from a coach who complained, "If (the official) doesn't call seven to eight fouls a game, he thinks he isn't going to get paid." No complaint about the accuracy of the calls, just the number. Markbreit never mentions being called out for the number of fouls he called in game. Instead, the NFL grades an official on the quality of each and every call the official makes or doesn't make so that the "right" number is just the fouls the tape captures during that game. Many officials at other levels do think there's a quota though, whether consciously or unconsciously, and that often drives what they let go.

Let's face it, most who stick with officiating for any length of time dream of making it into a major college conference or the pros. (Maybe our spouses don't.) If we don't aim that high, we at least equate better assignments within the ranks with validation of our ability. Whatever the case, we often hear the message - frequently in the pages of this magazine - that administrators want officials who will give the game to the players. The problem is we sometimes confuse giving the game to the players with giving the game away (and subsequently) not rocking the boat. That wasn't Markbreit's approach, which was to call the games with consistent correctness under unrelenting scrutiny. That isn't what Josephson advocates either, which is to call all the fouls as you see them and let the league decide whether they're really happy with the result.

For the most part, high school administrators are quite concerned about the acceptance for foul play they see at higher levels trickling down to their level. But they also believe they're stemming the tide once it gets there. Dr. Ken Blankenship is the executive director of the Alabama High School Athletic Directors and Coaches Association. He reflects the attitude held by many when he says, "The vast majority of (high school level) coaches understand that if you try to break the rules, it's going to get you. But there seems to be a breakdown in character (at the higher levels) that will eventually come down to the high school level.

"The outstanding coaches," Blankenship asserts, "will succeed without the need to teach cheating."

Jerry Diehl is assistant director of the NFHS responsible for football, wrestling, lacrosse and sports medicine. In his role as editor of the football rulebook, he sits at the "kitchen table" of many of the challenges to the notion of fair play. Despite what is seen in the college and pro ranks, he says, "I don't believe that gamesmanship is really out of hand (in high school). I say that because we've had so few major rule changes in the last eight years."

Diehl sees the potential for trouble though, as some officials have begun taking the soft approach that Josephson argued against. "I get frustrated when people say, 'That's not part of my job,"' says Diehl about officials who turn a blind eye to unsporting actions. "You end up with an escalation (of the problem) and you need officials to nip a lot of those things in the bud with a simple look or statement at the right time."

The great officials reach the pinnacle because they're prepared to make a difference. When you think of someone like Doug Harvey in baseball, the late great Tommy Bell in football or Pierluigi Collina in soccer, the stories about them are always about how they unflinchingly enforced the rules. Their reputations were built for them because we knew they were going to make the needed call, regardless of the circumstances or the support they might not get.

Josephson says, "To a person of honor, being backed up isn't important. Doing the right thing is doing it beyond the point you're willing to pay."

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Tim Sloan officiates basketball, soccer and baseball at the high school level, as well as high school and small college football. He lives in Le Clair, Iowa.

 

Cheaters Never Prosper (But Sometimes They Go to the Hall of Fame)

"Every time you went anywhere near Gaylord Perry when he was pitching. it was like walking into your kid's bedroom when he has pneumonia. All you could smell was Vicks and your eyes would water. That's how retired major league umpire Dave Phillips describes the 314-game winner and one of the most rhapsodized - and admitted - spitballers in baseball history. Perry was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991. The Perry legend lives on today but not just as a trove of entertaining vignettes of the wily veteran being frisked by the men in blue. It personifies the ethical challenge officials face today: How did Perry get away with the spitball for so long and can you show my son how to throw one? Perry even wrote a book in 1974 when he was still playing titled Me and the Spitter. In one passage, Perry wrote. “I'd always have it (grease) in at least two places, in case the umpires would ask me to wipe one off. I never wanted to  be caught out there with anything, though. It wouldn’t be professional.” Perry didn't just cheat, he passed along his techniques. George Frazier, who lost three games for the New York Yankees in the 1981 World Series, learned how to throw a greaseball from the master.  “It helped him get into the Hall of Fame. It helped me last 10 years.” Frazier said. “Gaylord taught me all the tricks - Vaseline or K-Y Jelly when you couldn't sweat in April. Just put it behind your neck or on the back of your thumb. He taught me something early that I never forgot: the umpire couldn't touch your skin when they came to the mound to check you out. They could touch your shirt or your glove or check your pockets, but no skin. Gaylord told me he used to put the stuff under his shoe tongue, incase l have a long game and it runs out." Cheating even played a role in some of the greatest moments in sports history. It was revealed last year that the then-New York Giants had an elaborate sign-stealing system in place at the Polo Grounds in 1951. Did Bobby Thomson know what Ralph Branca was throwing when he hit his shot heard around the world? That question may never be answered. Even by Thomson, who exhibited Clintonesque qualities when questioned by the Wall Street Journal. “I'd have to say more no than yes,” he said, then equivocated some more before finally saying that no, he didn’t steal the sign for that pitch. Bobby Thomson's not in the Hall of Fame ... but there is a featured exhibit in Cooperstown dedicated to that game complete with scorecards for both teams.

 

Boy Too Old for Little League Hurls Perfect Game

Cheating is not confined to the pro game, nor to adults. Although in this case, it's likely adults played a hand. Danny Almonte was the most dominating pitcher at the Little League World Series in 2001, throwing the first perfect game in 44 years at the tournament. He followed that with a one-hit shutout in the U.S. semifinals, and finished the tournament with 46 strikeouts, giving up only three hits in three starts. A run scored in the last inning of his final game was the only run scored on Almonte all summer. His team, the Rolando Paulino Little League All-Stars from The Bronx, N.Y., ended up with a third-place finish, not to mention congratulatory calls from the likes of President Bush and major leaguers Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr., as well as a parade through The Bronx and keys to the city of New York. Too bad it was soon determined that Almonte was two years older than was legal to play in the series. An investigation revealed that Almonte was 14 years old, not 12 as his father and his coach insisted he was. All the victories of his team were forfeited, and all its records - including Almonte's perfect game - were wiped out.

 

U.S. Team Cheats for Victory

Everyone remembers the indelible images of the U.S.'s dramatic victory in the 1999 Women's World Cup. Few remember how it ultimately obtained that victory. During the penalty kicks, U.S. goalie Briana Scurry violated the rule that says the goalie is allowed to move only laterally along the goalline prior to the kick being attempted. When Scurry made her game-ending save, she clearly darted forward at the Chinese kicker a good two strides - thereby greatly diminishing the angle the kicker had on the goal - before halting the ball away. Afterward, when asked about it by a Los Angeles Times reporter, Scurry said she had cheated, and added. "It is only cheating when you get caught." As it turns out, Scurry had premeditated her move by testing the referee, Nicole Mouidi-Penigat of Switzerland, on the first penalty kick, taking a modified run forward before the ball was kicked to see whether or not her action would be called. When it wasn’t she went for the big play two shots later and it paid off in a victory. L.A. Times Sports Editor Bill Dwyre wrote, “Of the mail received at the Times in the aftermath of a series of stories on this tainted victory, the most-frequently heard refrain was that it was the responsibility of the referee to call the play and since she didn't, there need be no moral or ethical discussion.

 

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